The so called multi-needle sewing machines have been typically used to form embroidery patterns on a workpiece cloth with multiple thread colors. The multi-needle sewing machine is provided with multiple needle bars each having a sewing needle attached to its lower end. A sewing mechanism, including but not limited to the needle bars, and a transfer mechanism that transfers an embroidery frame for holding a workpiece cloth co-operate to execute a sewing operation with a desired thread color. The multi-needle sewing machine generates embroidery pattern data prior to the execution of the sewing operation using its internal embroidery data generator or a separate embroidery data generator.
The multi-needle sewing machine transfers the embroidery pattern data generated by the embroidery pattern generator to other one or more sewing machines to provide a sewing system that allows sewing operation to be executed by multiple multi-needle sewing machines. To elaborate, in one exemplary configuration, a sewing system is provided that centrally manages the distributed embroidery pattern data through a host computer connected to a plurality of multi-needle sewing machines. Under such sewing system, the embroidery pattern data is edited as to its selection of thread color, etc., at the host computer and the edited embroidery pattern data is thereafter transmitted to the intended client multi-needle sewing machine for subsequent execution of sewing operation at each of the multi-needle sewing machines.
Further, some variations of the above described sewing systems are configured by interconnecting two or more multi-needle sewing machines with a communication cable while assigning one of the multi-needle sewing machines, or a first automatic sewing machine, the task of converting the embroidery pattern data. Under this sewing system, the first automatic sewing machine transmits its own embroidery pattern to a second automatic sewing machine. Thus, the sewing operation is executed at both the first and the second automatic sewing machines based on the converted or edited embroidery pattern data.
The former sewing system often employs an off-the-shelf computer for the host computer, and thus, requires a high level of computer expertise on the part of the user as well as a costly investment in acquiring a computer which does not have any sewing features. The later sewing system, on the other hand, eliminates the need of the host computer. However, the later sewing system requires a dedicated computer processing program to co-operate the two or more sewing machines and communication cables for interconnecting the two or more sewing machines.
To address such problems, a third type of sewing system is known that is configured by a separate embroidery data generator provided independently of the multi-needle sewing machine(s) and a pair of a first and second tag reader/writers provided at the multi-needle sewing machine and the embroidery data generator respectively. Under this sewing system, the embroidery pattern data generated by the embroidery data generator is written on a wireless tag provided on the workpiece cloth by the first tag reader/writer. Then the multi-needle sewing machine performs the sewing operation based on the embroidery pattern data of the wireless tag read by the second tag reader/writer. Further, the multi-needle sewing machine is configured such that when the embroidery sewing machine operation is interrupted, progress status data indicating the progress status of the sewing operation at the point of interruption is written on the wireless tag by the second tag reader/writer. The first and second tag reader/writers allow wireless communication between the nodes and the wireless tags to eliminate the earlier described communication cables.
However, this sewing system has a downside of having to go through a troublesome task of attaching the wireless tag to each individual workpiece cloth prior to the embroidery sewing operation and removing the wireless tags after completing the embroidery sewing operation. Moreover, the system is disadvantageous in terms of cost because it requires dedicated accessories such as tag reader/writers for establishing a wireless communication with the wireless tags.
Still further, some of the embroidery patterns may require multiple thread colors that exceed the color variation available in a single multi-needle sewing machine. In sewing such embroidery patterns, the sewing operation must be interrupted for thread spool replacement regardless of the type of sewing system applied, and thus, improvement in efficiency remains as a common goal among the foregoing systems.